Militants attack Nigeria's neighbors

Villagers are killed, mosques, churches razed in retaliation

Associated Press

Published 11:49 pm, Thursday, February 5, 2015

Yaounde, Cameroon

Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters took revenge on Thursday on villagers in Cameroon, shooting and burning scores to death and razing mosques and churches after warning Nigeria's neighbors not to join the battle against the Islamic insurgent group.

France's president warned that the world was not doing enough to end the wanton killings by the militants, who have waged a campaign of terror in a broad swath of northeastern Nigeria, where they declared an Islamic caliphate in August.

At least 91 villagers were killed and more than 500 were wounded in the northern Cameroon town of Fotokol on the border with Nigeria, where fighting began Wednesday and continued Thursday, Cameroonian officials said.

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While Boko Haram has previously carried out attacks in Cameroon, the latest bloodshed came after the group warned Nigeria's neighbors against uniting against it. Cameroon and Chad joined Nigeria in launching an air and ground offensive against the insurgents on at least two fronts this week.

Military involvement by other African nations in the fight against the insurgents stands to grow even bigger. African Union officials met Thursday to finalize plans for a multinational force to attack Boko Haram, though its deployment could be delayed by funding issues.

Last week, African leaders authorized a 7,500-strong force to fight the Islamic extremists, including pledges of a battalion each from Nigeria and its four neighbors, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin.

"We consider Boko Haram to be a cancer, and if the international community does not focus its mind on this disease it will spread not only in Central Africa but other regions, all over the continent," Cameroon's Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said at the start of the three-day meeting in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital.

Officials from the United States, France, Russia, Britain and the European Union were attending, along with senior officials from the U.N. peacekeeping department.

Earlier, Bakary told The Associated Press that some 800 Boko Haram fighters were rampaging through the frontier town of Fotokol, located in a thin northern panhandle of the West African nation.

They have "burned churches, mosques and villages and slaughtered youth who resisted joining them," he said, adding that the insurgents also stole livestock and food. Schools were also being targeted by the insurgents, whose nickname means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language.

Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters were killed Wednesday, according to Cameroon's defense minister, Edgard Alain Mebe Ngo, who said 13 Chadian and six Cameroonian troops were killed in the fighting. The account could not be confirmed.

At least 91 civilians were killed, Ngo said, adding that most of the 500 wounded were trapped and could not be taken to hospitals.

The Boko Haram fighters are believed to have crossed into Cameroon from nearby Gamboru, a Nigerian border town that had been an extremist stronghold since November. Gamboru was retaken earlier this week and the fighters driven out amid Chadian and Nigerian airstrikes supported by Chadian ground troops.